The argument for local food: at an unimposing diner in Vermont, a revolution is taking place.

• Author: Halweil, Brian
• Position: Farmers Diner

Stop in at the Farmers Diner in Barre, Vermont, and you have landed in the middle of a revolution, although you might not see it at first glance. It's about what you'd expect in a town known for quarrying granite and carving tombstones and where Main Street consists of a courthouse, movie theater, hardware store, florist, bank, and diner. Twelve green vinyl stools line the white linoleum countertop in this 60-seat eatery. On the back counter, a 1960s glass pastry case displays fresh-baked pies and muffins. A stainless steel milk dispenser hums as its contents cool, and old-fashioned blenders stand ready to make milk shakes. A pass-thru window to the kitchen frames the cooks as they flip omelettes and pancakes and push burnt bits of hash-browns and bacon towards the grill's gutter. Not too different from the original diner that opened in this long and narrow building 70 years ago.

The place has its early morning regulars--a retired farmer, a couple of state highway maintenance workers, electricians, plumbers, and other assorted craftsmen--who on this gray winter morning are already cradling their bulky white coffee mugs by 7 a.m. Booths are illuminated by 1930's style pendent lights.

A dozen conversations rumble, including one between me and the diner's owner and manager, Tod Murphy. Coffee cups clink against their saucers. An occasional ring signals that dishes are up. The waitresses' sneakers squeak on the wood floors. "My son says his dad smells like French fries," says Murphy.

Linger a bit longer, though, and you find that this isn't any ordinary diner. The milk in the blenders and dispenser is certified organic, which means the cows it came from weren't given shots of antibiotics, and weren't given feed grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It's also from a local dairy, which means it didn't arrive in a tank truck from a place most of the folks in Barre have never seen.

The eggs in the omelettes are local too. The berries and flour in the muffins and pies are from local berry patches and wheat fields. The diner cuts all its own French fries and grinds all its own hamburger meat--the beef too coming from local farms. In fact, while most of the food that Americans eat travels at least 1,500 miles from farm to plate, most of the food served in this place was grown within 50 miles, and Murphy's goal is 100 percent. It's February now and there's still snow on the parking lot. But even in the dead of New England's winter, the menu continues to serve a range of local produce, from grain for the bread and pasta to beans, meat, carrots, potatoes, onions, applesauce, cider, and beer.

I notice that the menu covers feature pictures of the farmers who supply the food. (Who would have thought that the food you eat in a restaurant could come from individual people?) The plastic place-mat reads like a Who's Who of radical thought on the state of the modern food system, which is decidedly not about individually responsible people. I chuckle at the quote from Columbia University nutritionist and suburban homesteader Joan Gussow: "I prefer butter to margarine because I trust cows more than chemists." There is Wendell Berry's famous declaration that "eating is an agricultural act." And there's a quote from Murphy himself: "Think Locally, Act Neighborly." He tells me he won't hold it against anyone for acting or thinking globally, but it seems too complex to him. "Acting neighborly is something we know," he says.

The diner is thriving. Meghan, a waitress, tells me, "We open at 5:30 every morning and close at 9 every night. Lunch is always busy. Weekends are always busy. And as the seasons change, things just get busier every day." The owners have plans to open four more locations, riding a wave of interest among local farmers, chefs, environmentalists, and concerned eaters who would like to see more locally grown food on grocery store shelves, restaurant menus, and kitchen tables.

But all of this interest doesn't mean the work is easy. "I'm slaying dragons every day," says Murphy, referring to the obstacles he faces in running a restaurant built on local food, from onerous food safety regulations designed for industrial-scale ventures to shortsighted farm policies that have reduced Vermont's crop diversity, to the crushing weight of global food brands on struggling local businesses.

As I listen to Murphy describe his vision--what he calls a "wild experiment"--I can't help but think that the feudal analogy fits. He really is talking about revolution. He's talking about a shift in power as potentially profound as the eighteenth-century dismantling of aristocracies throughout Europe. In a modern food landscape where the Krafts, Monsantos, and ADMs play the role of the Tudors, Tzars, and Louis XIVs, Murphy's life work is fighting for food democracy.

At first blush, "food democracy" may seem a little grandiose--a strange combination of words. But if you doubt the existence of power relations in the realm of food, consider a point made by Frances and Anna Lappe in their book Hope's Edge. The typical supermarket contains no fewer than 30,000 items. About half of those items are produced by 10 multinational food and beverage companies. And roughly 140 people--117 men and 21 women--form the boards of directors of those 10 companies. In other words, although the plethora of products you see at a typical supermarket gives the appearance of abundant choice, much of the variety is more a matter of packaging and branding than of true agricultural variety, and rather than coming to us from thousands of different farmers producing different local varieties, has...